When I first started looking for a place in Sonora, I went on to craigslist and found a listing by a guy named Austin. I called him and he told me he had one room open in his converted trailer. He said he was a writer and the open room was a makeshift library, empty but for some books and every copy of Playboy from 1952 to 1976. Regarding noise, he said every few weeks a carload of friends would come from the Bay Area and they would string a mattress pinned with pictures of Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah to a rolling pulley and take target practice. He mentioned a previous roommate had left because she “couldn’t handle my radical conservative politics.”
Unfortunately, when I called back a week later and asked to rent the room it was already taken. But I found a situation almost as good.
I live in an old, semi-abandoned sawmill because it’s an adventure. When I moved in six weeks ago there were no locks on the front door. The shower had no door and when I turned it on anyways, the water ran brown. The dogs across the street howl at night and heavy machinery wakes me up sometimes on Monday mornings.
But a few days my landlord invited me to move earth in backhoe with wheels the size of my car. And a few weeks ago, after a friend of my landlord dropped by to warn me of a nearby fire, I walked to the end of the mill property, climbed a tree and watched as planes dropped water and retardant on the flames. And any day I want I can hop on my bike and ride from my front door straight into the woods. And moreover, within a half mile of my house I have found at least total eight mine shafts, all abandoned but for one with a red door and a white skull and crossbones spray-painted under the image of a mining pick. It’s an adventure everyday.
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